iTechGuides is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Learn more
A PDF can display Arabic beautifully and still fail to return the expected Arabic letters when you search, copy, or extract its text. In a 2026 test using headless Chrome 135 and pdf.js 4.8, Amiri Regular and Amiri Bold had the strongest whole-word results among the displayed font rows. That is a result from one project’s setup—not a guarantee that Amiri, or any font, will work in every PDF workflow.
What the 13-font test found
Mahmoud Qq2023’s 2026 comparison tested 13 fonts by generating PDFs with headless Chrome 135 and checking text with pdf.js 4.8. In the displayed rows, Amiri was the only family reported to store real Arabic letters rather than presentation forms, and it returned most of the test’s whole-word matches.
| Font row | Reported whole-word matches | Reported text representation |
|---|---|---|
| Amiri Regular | 15/18 | Real Arabic letters |
| Amiri Bold | 16/18 | Real Arabic letters |
| IBM Plex Sans Arabic | 0/18 | Presentation forms |
| Noto Sans Arabic | 0/18 | Presentation forms |
| Arial (Windows) | 0/18 | Presentation forms |
| Tahoma (Windows) | 0/18 | Presentation forms |
These are the project author’s results, not an independent benchmark or an industry standard. The project page reports other fonts and variants with partial results, so “only one” should not be read as a universal claim about every font file or PDF generator. The 15/18 and 16/18 counts also do not mean every missed word contained incorrect letters: the author notes that pdf.js can insert a space at a text-run boundary even when letters remain in order. See the project comparison and test details.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Why a PDF can look right but search wrong
Arabic letters change shape according to their position and neighboring letters. A PDF can draw the correct shaped glyphs while associating the underlying character code with a different Unicode value. In the reported test, the project attributes failures in several fonts to ToUnicode mappings that pointed to Arabic presentation-form code points instead of the nominal Arabic letters expected in the text.
#1 Best Overall
A PDF’s ToUnicode CMap provides a mapping from character codes to Unicode values for text extraction. That mapping is a key part of making selectable text useful, but the cited technical material does not establish that font choice alone controls the entire process. The browser or PDF-generation library, font file and weight, and viewer or extraction tool may all affect what a reader gets. The Adobe PDF Reference describes the document-level mapping mechanism.
Right-to-left display is related but distinct. Unicode’s Bidirectional Algorithm governs ordering for right-to-left and mixed-direction text; correct visual ordering does not prove that the PDF maps its character codes back to the intended searchable letters. See the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
Arabic cases worth testing separately
Lam-alef ligatures
Lam and alef can be shaped as a single glyph. The project reports reversed character order in some extracted mappings, making a word containing لا a useful stress test. Check the generated PDF’s actual extracted string and whole-word search rather than assuming that correct appearance guarantees correct text.
PC Slower Than It Used to Be?
A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Outdated Drivers Are Slowing You Down
One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchDiacritics and harakat
The author reports that diacritics rendered but were extracted as U+0000 in the tested fonts. That observation applies to those runs; it is not proof that every PDF workflow loses marks. The available evidence does not support promising that harakat will remain reliably copyable or searchable.
How to choose and validate an Arabic PDF font
For the specific Chrome 135/pdf.js 4.8 comparison, the project author recommends embedding Amiri, using a genuine bold font file when bold text must remain searchable, and testing words containing lam-alef. This is the author’s recommendation from that comparison, not an independently reproduced result.
- Use the exact font file and weight you intend to publish. Record the family, file, and whether bold is a real font file or a synthetic weight; the test distinguishes Amiri Regular and Bold as separate rows.
- Generate a sample PDF in your actual pipeline. Record the browser or PDF-generation library and version. A font comparison in headless Chrome 135 does not by itself predict another generator’s output.
- Inspect extracted text, not just the page image. Select and copy Arabic text or use an extraction tool, then compare the returned letters with the expected base-letter string. Confirm that search finds a complete word.
- Include difficult strings. Test a word containing لا and, if your content uses them, words with diacritics. Check both the visible rendering and extracted character sequence.
- Test with the viewer your readers use. Record the PDF viewer or extraction tool and version, since the project’s matching counts were checked with pdf.js 4.8.
For a reproducible comparison, keep the generated PDFs and the exact test strings alongside those environment details. TCPDF’s documentation gives an implementation-specific example of Unicode mapping for searchable PDF text; it should not be taken as evidence that all PDF libraries behave alike. TCPDF documentation.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the result does—and does not—tell you
If your workflow resembles the reported setup, Amiri is the most promising starting point among the displayed rows. The test does not establish that it is the only font capable of searchable Arabic, that its results will transfer to another browser or PDF library, or that every one of its words will match. The practical criterion is the PDF your pipeline produces: it should both render correctly and expose the intended Arabic characters when searched or extracted.
Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
